The iPhone 5 is scheduled for release in China, one of Apple's biggest markets, on December 14 and the iPad mini and fourth-generation iPad will start selling in the country a week earlier on December 7.

Apple's iPad shipments for China nearly doubled in the third quarter, after Apple settled in July a lengthy dispute over the iPad trademark name that once threatened to ban the device from store shelves in the country.

Google's mobile maps product saw its market share in China decline by close to 50 percent in the third quarter due to Apple switching to its own maps product for its iOS 6 upgrade, according to a Beijing-based research firm.

As Apple prepares to start selling its new iPad Mini, workers at a Chinese factory that manufactures the product have been enduring chemical fumes, 12-hour work shifts and alleged company mismanagement as they assemble the new device.

The name Foxconn has become shorthand for the human costs of building the iPhone in China, linking Apple to bad publicity about worker suicides, deaths from a plant explosion and rioting factory workers. But many other companies besides Apple contract with the Taiwan-based firm to build their products.

Electronics manufacturer Foxconn Technology Group said on Tuesday that students as young as 14, below the legal working age, were found employed at a company factory in China that has been said to make products for Japanese gaming firm Nintendo.

Apple supplier Foxlink, a maker of iPhone cable connectors, is disputing claims that a company worker committed suicide after being denied a leave of absence, suggesting instead that drug use may have played a role in the worker's death.

The family of a worker who committed suicide at an Apple supplier in China is blaming his death on the harsh management at the factory and has tried demonstrating against the company, only to be detained by local police.